The present invention provides an improved means for the controlled primary removal of fluid whey from a body or successive bodies of specifically fresh cheese curd material while the curd material is yet in the soft, particulate, warm, malleable slurry form, and thereby for attaining positive, consistent, and repeatable control of the remaining and subsequently developing whey fluid content, and particularly, control of the distribution of that remaining and subsequently developing whey fluid, by means of combining a number of mechanical innovations to permit the repeated mechanical unimpeded controlled entry and removal of one or more long deeply penetrating wedge shaped perforated hollow drain blade and vacuum suction tube assemblies to and from a succession of containers holding the curd material through the primary fluid removal process. Included are means to precisely control the orientation and path of reciprocating travel of the long perforated wedge shaped drain blade and vacuum suction tube assemblies, means to vary over a time/ location frame of reference, the force applied to the pressure plate / long perforated hollow wedge shaped drain blade and vacuum suction tube assemblies during successive entry and/or reentry to the material containers, means to motivate and accurately position a succession of material containers in precise three dimensional and orientational proximity to a number of pressure plate / long perforated wedge shaped drain blade and vacuum suction tube assemblies, means for remote visual human operator inspection to ensure that each individual vacuum suction tube assembly can be maintained in full operating condition, means to check weigh each container immediately following primary whey removal to detect both insufficient and excessive removal of whey, and means to provide and automatically control all necessary mechanical functions, entirely repeatable on a variable time frame basis to enable the described process and apparatus to optimally function for a variety of cheese curd varieties, and with only the periodic supervisory indirect involvement of human operators during the whey removal process.
A variety of methods for production of cheese and its primary shape molding by direct filling in slurry form into for example the giant "640" block, along with various methods and combinations of methods for extraction of fluid whey, have long been known in the art. A shortcoming of all known and all commercially used such processes to date has been the inability to achieve and consistently ensure, on a commercial production scale, the removal of a precise amount of whey from each particularly larger production body of cheese product, leaving within the body only the most desirable amount of whey. A further consistent shortcoming of known such systems and devices, is the inability to leave the remaining whey in a state where it is uniformly distributed throughout the body of cheese, particularly at the time of shredding or cutting into smaller consumer portions, at which time the whey content in various parts of the original body of cheese is generally tested and evaluated.
Low whey content, while sometimes acceptable in a given product classification, reduces the productivity of the cheesemaking process by transferring more fluid whey than is necessary to disposal or to other low value processes.
High whey content, through part or all of the curd body, while increasing the weight and volume of the final cheese product, becomes unacceptable from a product standards and marketability aspect, resulting generally in devaluation of this product, at least on a per container basis, and possibly on a per shipment or per supplier basis.
A further sometimes adverse condition of known and commonly used methods and mechanisms utilizing tubular vacuum probes, which are forced to penetrate the curd body for withdrawal of fluid whey, is that cavities are sometimes left within the cheese body which attract and tend to become filled with free whey which is thereby not necessarily fully reabsorbed, even over long storage periods, by the parent curd body, producing at times rancidity and a major devaluation of the product.
Said tubular vacuum probes are typically constructed as a tube within a tube, the inner vacuum tube serving to affect fluid extraction and the outer perforated tube serving as a wet well for the accumulation of free fluid in ideal proximity to the lower end of the inner tube, the process for large cheese blocks requiring relatively large numbers of tube assemblies penetrating each body of cheese curd to remove sufficient whey and to leave the remaining whey in a somewhat evenly distributed state. Such multiple tube assemblies are costly to provide in a hygienic state, and are inherently difficult to clean, needing frequent manual disassembly, causing both a frequent high labor usage requirement for sanitary operation, and a major potential for insanitary operation.
Known and commercially used traditional systems for the extraction of whey from large blocks of cheese, utilizing perforated hollow wedge shaped drain blades, have previously required the use of dual sets of blades, one beneath the cheese curd slurry as it enters the container, and another which enters the top of the body of cheese curd shortly after filling is completed, each set penetrating nominally only half of the total depth of the body of product.
Such use of perforated drain blades has not been combined with the use of vacuum tubes placed within the hollow drain blades.
The use of dual sets of blades requires, after a limited time, and after removal of the upper penetrating blade set, that each body of cheese curd in turn be inverted through 180 degrees so that the lower blade set can now be removed from the product body without undue loss of product from the container. The requirement for inversion necessitates further utilization of floor space, additional equipment, additional steps in the process, and is generally labor intensive and dangerous to human operators. Said systems tend to be inefficient in terms of floor space usage, product spillage, cleanup chemical and water usage, and physical human effort requirement, for both production and cleanup.
A further general inefficiency of primary whey removal systems, currently used in cheese manufacturing, is caused by human operator error, heightened by fatigue and repetition based boredom, resulting in a generally high incidence of inconsistencies in the repeatability of many process steps with consequential degradation in product quality and consistency, and in production equipment damage, down time, repair, and replacement.